Northern Machismo

There's something about the folk in the north that has been bugging me on and off for the past four years.  The problem is with the typical northerner's psyche.  There is this idea that they can endure anything because they are "tough".  For example, it was snowing and drifting like crazy last night and this morning and the school buses in our district were still running.  The buses in the district to the south were shut down.  When you talk to people in the schools, the reason you get is that we are tougher and we can handle these weather conditions.  I think it is important for people to differentiate between tough or brave and foolhardy.  In their desire to appear tough and rugged, many northerners only succeed in making foolish choices.

Another example of how tough northerners are, is when it comes to cold.  When it is crazy cold outside (somewhere south of minus retarded), you hear many say that it's not that cold outside.  We are tough up here and if you just dress for it, you can handle it.  Now these are usually the same people that will start their vehicles over an hour ahead of leaving home.  There is no mechanical reason to let a vehicle run that long, they just like to get into a warm car.  It is nothing to see long rows of gigantic trucks idling outside the movie theater or hockey rink while the owners are inside for the duration.  Why do the pollute the atmosphere so?  Well, what kind of tough guy (or girl) wants to set their delicate ass on a cold seat?

My F$@#ing Cat

Well, I just spent the last 45 minutes wandering our neighbourhood calling for a cat that had gone out early this afternoon and hadn't been heard from since.  My wife is much fonder of this cat than I am.  She was quite distraught at the missing feline.  So, out we went and wandered the snowy streets, looking like fools, calling out a cat's name.  Unfortunately, we saw nothing and heard nothing while out and about.

When we got home, Jen went out on the deck one last time and called London's name.  She said she heard him.  After listening I determined he was somewhere in the back yard.  Now, we've had quite a bit of snow over the last couple of weeks.  I plowed out into the back yard.  The snow was up to my crotch!  I'm not a tall man, but that's still pretty deep snow!  I chugged through the wiener deep snow, only pausing long enough to listen for pathetic meows from the back corner of the yard.  Of course the  little idiot managed to get to the farthest point in the yard possible.  When I finally made it to the far corner, the cat was peaking out from behind a sheet of chip board the previous owners had left leaned up against the shed.  It turns out that he had taken the fence most of the way around the yard and then jumped down at the back.  That is when the fool cat realized that the snow is deep in the front AND the back of the house.  So, we carried him back into the house where he promptly showed us his ass and went to get something to eat and fall asleep.


Sometimes I really hate that f$@#ing cat.

Rural Hockey

Well, yesterday was the first tournament of the rural hockey season.  Students from 3 or 4 rural schools participate in an unofficial league that allows the kids that don't or can't play organized hockey in town to be on a team and play in meaningful games.  The arenas are largely outdoors (though one of the communities has a new $5 million dollar arena with artificial ice).  The games are played in a series of one day tournaments and there are no standings kept.  At the end of the season (usually the middle of March) there is a rural hockey tournament in Fort St. John where the kids get medals, ribbons, etc.  The RCMP used to sponsor and organize the tournament, but pulled out before last year's tournament.  As an aside, with the terrible reputation the RCMP has in BC right now, it really boggles the mind that the cops would give up such a good PR opportunity.  Anyway, the regional district and parents have stepped in to provide funding and organization.

I coach in the "C" division, which is for kids ages 5-9.  Yesterday's tournament was supposed to be held outdoors in Prespatou, but do to the warm weather the moved it into the new arena in the nearby community of Buick Creek.  Both of these communities are about an hour out of town, so it is a bit of a time commitment for me this year, but there was nobody else to do it and the kids have a real blast.  The last two years, I lived and worked in Prespatou, so the tournaments were all pretty close.

While the kids had a great time playing, we did not meet with much success.  We managed to score only 2 goals in two games and had about 20 or so scored against us.  The problem is a lack of skills and a lack of practice time.  We have only had one practice this year. Due to extremely cold temperatures, not having ice in the rink until the end of December and too much snow canceling buses, practice time has been hard to come by.  Now the weather has turned warm and the ice may be no good to practice on tomorrow.

Hopefully, we can get the kids into at least a competitive situation before the final tournament, so they can have a bit more fun and have something to look forward to next year.

Who Knew Hell Was This Cold?

After three and a half years in the frozen north the frequency of new experiences has gradually declined.  I usually have to go looking for them now, where before they seemed to find me with disturbing regularity.  Well, I had one of those new experiences the other day and it just found me.

We came out of school about 4:00 and it was a bitterly cold day.  The temperature was -23 and the windchill made it feel closer to -40.  As we were getting into the nicely warmed up car, Jen said that the tire was flat.  Now, Jen is always thinking the tire is flat, so I didn't put much stock in it.  However, I always go and check and this time it was actually flat.  I said some bad words right then.  I had more bad words to say when I realized I had forgotten my big gloves and only had a pair of small stretchy gloves.  So we begin digging out the spare and the jack out of the trunk.  Of course all of that stuff is stacked and packed in layers of foam containers and under layers of trunk and storage stuff.

The first step was to loosen the lug nuts.  Oh, yeah.  I forgot we had locking wheel lugs.  Well, I'll just sit in the car and read the instructions on how to get those bad boys off.  It turns out there is a special insert to put in your tire iron that fits into the end of the one locking nut on each tire to loosen it.  So, I make my way out into the freezing cold and pick up the tire iron and try to loosen the lug nuts.  Let me tell you that it is hard to get much leverage when you only have a six inch tire iron.  What were the idiots are Subaru thinking?  Well, after much grunting and groaning I finally loosened them and jacked up the car.  That is when I realized the tire wouldn't come off.  I figured I should go inside and warm up since I couldn't really feel my pinky fingers anymore.  After a warm up I went back out and kicked the shit out of the tire to loosen it.  That didn't work, so I got out the user manual for the car in case there was something I didn't know.  Nope.  It was just frozen.  Thankfully, the janitor came outside with a hunk of wood and he proceeded to beet the crap out of the tire until it came off.  We put on the donut and headed for home.

After a long drive home we had to find somewhere that was still open to fix our tire or we would be mooching a ride off someone the next day.  It was about 5:30 when we got into town and most places in FSJ close around 5:00, so were a little bit worried.  The first shop we went to couldn't get us in before they closed but nicely referred us to a shop that was open until 7:00.  We got the tire fixed and it turned out to be a sharp stone from the road.  Considering the amount of gravel on our roads during the winter, it's a wonder it hadn't happened sooner.  On the bright side, it was -32 when we came out from school the next day, so it could have been worse.

Positivity

I've decided to adopt a word for the new year.  It was actually my wife's idea, but I've taken it and made it better by actually making up the word too!  Admittedly, I tend towards the negative and the pessimistic.  So, I've decided to make a conscious effort to focus on the positives in my life.  I was recently smudged by an Aboriginal Education Worker at my school.  The ceremony is all about taking out the negative thoughts and energy in you and committing to see, hear, speak and think the positive in the future.  I decided right there, that this was going to be my new project.

I've been trying to be positive for a few weeks now and it is REALLY hard!  The largest problem is my habit of falling into the negative.  That is turning out to be a very tough habit to break, but I'm still plugging away at it.  The other problem is other people.  It turns out that when you start noticing it, lots of people are very negative.  Those negative people can easily lead you down the path of darkness if you are not paying attention.  The final problem is people that really piss me off.  There are some people, especially at work, that really piss me off.  It turns out that being pissed off is a really good way to turn negative.  You have to admit that being angry or annoyed with someone is a perfect excuse to think negative thoughts.  So, I've had to modify the positivity principle.  Not only will I try to think positive thoughts, if it becomes impossible to think positively about a person or situation I will try to keep my thoughts neutral on the matter.  Hey, it's the best I can do sometimes.

An Unexpected Holiday

What happened to Jen and I today is a bit embarrassing, but also pretty humorous.  Jen and I got up for work as normal today.  We had our breakfast and packed up the car.  On our way to work I commented on the fact that there were not very many vehicles on the road this morning.  Usually, there is a pretty steady stream of traffic heading into town in the morning.  This morning we saw only two other cars on the road. 

When we got to school, we were very surprised to find we were the first ones there.  I figured that nobody else wanted to go back to work today either.  When it was about 30 minutes before school was about to start and there was not a single staff member at the school, I knew that something was up.  I decided to check school email account.  I had studiously avoided checking work email for the past two weeks.  Jen had checked hers last night and told me about the week ahead email that our principal had sent to us.  When I opened the same email, I saw that the first line said "Tuesday, January 4, return to school".  Jen had clearly not read her email very carefully.  At the same time, that unspoken hope that lingers in the back of your mind when you see nobody else at work that maybe you didn't have to be at work suddenly burst to the fore.  We both laughed pretty hard, but felt pretty damn good at the same time.

So, there we were at school on the last day of our holidays.  We decided to stay and get some work done.  We ended up leaving at noon and enjoying our unexpected afternoon off.